A new limit for contactless card payments has increased to £30 making it easier for UK customers to pay for items.

The number of people using contactless cards in the UK has risen because not having to enter a pin number or provide a signature makes payment easy.

The initial limit was £20 however the technology giant Apple has also allowed its customers to use Apple Pay on their devices, which is another factor of the increased limit.

Despite certain hesitation from the consumer group Which?, who warned that data could be easily stolen by determined fraudsters, transactions for the first half of this year was £2.5 billion. This figure is higher than the previous year, which was £2.32 billion spend in total.

Both contactless payments and Apple Pay have proven to be secure, with Apple Pay using touch ID on the iPhone 6 and a passcode on the Apple Watch.

Weekly supermarket shops are now easier for customers as the average £25 shop will be covered, the UK Cards Association said.

The new Apple Pay system will launch in the UK in July but will be limited to £20 payments. Many retailers and UK banks have decided that they will offer the new system, all apart from Barclays who will not.

The system works by iPhone 6 or Apple watch users touching their devices to contactless pads and nothing more. However, Apple Pay will be similar to the existing contactless card payments where the amount per transaction is capped at £20.

Despite the contactless cards being capped at this amount, the limit on both debit and credit cards is due to increase to £30 in September. This could also be likely for Apple Pay payments and it is possible that agreements with some retailers could mean that they will allow higher payments.

Another bonus to Apple Pay is that it allows customers to pay online by simply using their own fingerprint. The new fingerprint technology has become popular and eventually new technology could overtake those existing ones such as cash payments or normal chip and pin.

Once Apple Pay has come into effect, retailers including Marks and Spencer as well as Waitrose have announced that they will offer the service. Tesco will not be adopting the system and ASDA is another supermarket that will not be using the service, along with its parent company Walmart who has not signed up in the US.

Apple Pay does not mean that businesses will have to install any new payment hardware because it will use the same existing contactless system and so it will be easy for companies to use the system, should they decide to.

Apple has created a system that will cause competitors to try to fight back and it is said that the phone company, Samsung, is likely to launch something similar in the UK later on this year.